Triggerheart Exelica
This article is about the game, for the eponymous character, see: Exelica Triggerheart Exelica (トリガーハート エグゼリカ Torigāhāto Eguzerika, also spelled Trigger Heart Exelica) is a shoot'em up by Warashi and the primary focus of this Wiki. It was released in Japanese arcades in May 29, 2006. The game runs on Sega's Naomi hardware, and was later ported to the Sega Dreamcast, becoming the system's penultimate licensed title when it was released in Japan on February 22, 2007— only two weeks prior to Karous. It was ported later to other consoles with slight improvements. Plot In an unknown alien galaxy far away from the Milky Way, a war is waging between a group of human-like people called C.H.I.L.D.A. and a mysterious race of violent robotic vehicles known as the Ver’mith. C.H.I.L.D.A. employed their elite squad consisting of humanoid weapons known as Triggerhearts, two of the Triggerheart units, Exelica and her programmed sister Crueltear, were busily fighting the Ver’mith during an attack when a portal known as "Gate" opened and sucked both Triggerhearts in. Materializing on planet Earth, Exelica and Crueltear soon made this planet their new home as they had no means of return, and losing their reasons to fight as they were also uncapable to know the outcome of the Interstellar Wars. Some time later a new portal opened and the surviving Ver'mith forces appeared. Intent on making Earth their primary fortress of attack, the Ver'mith quickly eliminated the majority of Earth’s defenses. As the destruction spreads, the once buried fighting instincts within Exelica and Crueltear re-awoke. The final battle against the Ver'mith has begun, but this time the Ver'mith have their own version of a Triggerheart unit known as Faintear. Outnumbered, but with their fighting instincts awoken, and with a reason to fight once again, the future of planet Earth and the entire galaxy rests on the Triggerheart units. Gameplay The gameplay involves playing with 1 of 2 selectable characters to battle against 5 stages of enemy ships. Exelica specializes in wide area attacks making her appropiate for beginner players, while Crueltear uses concentrated front shots, which makes her perfect for average and expert players. Players can also fire the Anchor Unit to catch enemy ships, then use the caught enemies as a shield or throw it to inflict more damage. Like many other shooters, the game features a Bomb to clear the screen of bullets and damage or destroy some of the enemies on-screen. 'Triggerhearts' The player-controlled units are humanoid fighters in leotard-like outfits called Spec Suits.There's two available Triggerheart units to play with: *'TH60 Exelica:' Wide forward Spread Shot, slow movement, slow Anchor traction *'TH32 Crueltear:' Concentrated front Linear Shot, fast movement, fast Anchor traction V.B.A.S. (Variable Boss Attack System) Main article: [[V.B.A.S.|'V.B.A.S.]]'' In a similar fashion to Compile's game Zanac, this game dynamically adjusts difficulty based on the player's in-game performance. It affects the difficulty of game bosses. If player collects more score items, the harder the bosses will be to defeat. Dreamcast version Features Along with the original arcade game, the Dreamcast version added a Story Mode and an Arrange Mode. The "Arrange Mode" is an increased difficulty version of the original arcade version and does not have continues if the player loses all his/her lives. There are two distinct versions being released: a regular version and a limited edition, which includes a soundtrack and guide book. Early orders from Sega Direct also included a phone card, and poster. Although officially released only in Japan, it can be enjoyed by players from other countries because most of the menus are in English with Japanese subtitles. However, a Dreamcast boot disc will be needed to play it on a non-Japanese console, since the disc is locked to the Japanese region. Curiosities * According to MAME (Multiple Arcade Machine Emulator), Triggerheart Exelica has a 4096 color palette, the same as Capcom's CPS-1 and CPS-2 boards and the SNK's Neo-Geo Multi-Video System hardware. * The arcade flyer features screenshots of the prototype version of the game, depicting multiple differences from the final version. * The weapon-speed configuration of the Triggerheart units can be compared to the Mosquito ships from Mars Matrix: Hyper Solid Shooting. Exelica's slow speed and use of a Spread Shot would equal those of the Mosquito 01, while Crueltear will be like the Mosquito 02 with her fast speed and Linear Shot combination. You can call Triggerheart Exelica "Mars Matrix with Girls" if you want to. Links Warashi's game page '''(Backup from Internet Archive's Wayback Machine) Sega's arcade game page (Backup from Internet Archive's Wayback Machine) [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TriggerheartExelica TV Tropes article about Triggerheart Exelica] Category:Games Category:Triggerheart Exelica (Category) Category:Warashi Shooters Category:Triggerheart Exelica Games